Lower Manhattan may be in the throes of rapid development, but according to some of its advocates, the neighborhood is still much in need of a creative presence.

“When I got out of the subway, I said, ‘This place needs arts,'” Chris Eastland, a painter and photographer who attended a party Saturday night at the Cocoa Exchange, an apartment building on Pearl Street, said. The event, a silent auction held by the new organization Naked City Arts, was an attempt to do just that — lure artists to Lower Manhattan.

The silent auction, the organization’s first, featured painting, photography, and sculpture by 10 mid-career and emerging artists, including Mr. Eastland. But, perhaps more importantly, it drew a festive crowd of artists and patrons to the rooftop of 1 Wall Street Court.

Photographer and art consultant Miru Kim, who lives in the building, founded Naked Arts City LLC in May with the goal of attracting more of her artistic friends downtown.

“I’m afraid of Lower Manhattan becoming like a mall,” Ms. Kim said, sipping wine while her guests enjoyed river views from the rooftop. After moving in January to the intersection of Pearl, Wall, and Beaver streets, she found that the majority of her new neighbors worked in finance. “I want to see more artists come down here,” she said.

She started holding “play tanks,” small gatherings where artists, architects, and filmmakers met at venues in the neighborhood to discuss their work. The meetings will continue, on a monthly basis, under the auspices of Naked City Arts, along with Ms. Kim’s art consulting services and more formal events like Saturday’s gala. Ms. Kim, who was born in Korea but attended high school in Massachusetts before matriculating at Columbia University, said she hopes to ally with the well established Lower Manhattan Cultural Council and other nonprofit arts organizations.

After earning a Master of Fine Arts from the Pratt Institute, Ms. Kim discovered that many of her classmates found it so difficult to earn a living in New York City that they didn’t have time to make art. Naked City Arts’ silent auctions, she hopes, will offer young artists hard-to-come-by opportunities to gain exposure and sell their work.

More than half of the works up for bid at Saturday’s silent auction were sold, she said. One wooden sculpture, “Sunken Tree,” by Sean Slemon, sold for $1,500, well above its starting bid of $600.

For Mr. Eastland, who until recently worked primarily as a portrait painter, Saturday’s gala offered a rare opportunity to display his photographs. Mr. Eastland was classically trained by Charles H. Cecil in Florence, Italy. About a year ago, after moving to New York, he was photographing some old He-Man action figures to sell on eBay when he discovered he was more interested in the resulting photographs than the profits he would get from selling the toys.

Ms. Kim also sold items last Saturday by more established “guest” artists, including her friend Michael Ricardo Andreev, whose paintings have been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art and are included in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Mr. Andreev, who displayed two small black-andwhite paintings in the show, said collaboration with other artists is key to the creative process.

“It’s important for artists to meet,” he said, pointing out that many artists tend to isolate themselves in their studios. “You learn a lot about yourself.”

Greg Lindquist, a classmate of Ms. Kim’s from Pratt who participated in the auction, applauded Ms. Kim’s effort to help young artists keep making work in an expensive city. “Living in New York, it’s difficult,” Mr. Lindquist, a painter who is preparing for his first solo exhibition at Elizabeth Harris Gallery in February, said. “You have to make money to live. I like the do-it-yourself aspect of Miru’s philosophy.”

As for her goal of bringing more artists downtown? Mr. Lindquist, who lives in Brooklyn, said he’s been to Lower Manhattan three times in the past three months. “I would never come to this part of town if it weren’t for this,” he said.